What is The Literary Fantasy Magazine?

The Literary Fantasy Magazine is a student managed Literary Magazine and an imprint of The Arcanist: Fantasy Publishing, based in Bloomington, Indiana.

We are on a quest to find the best Fantasy has to offer. We want stories that challenge our convictions, paint new horizons, and put us in the shoes of someone in a land far, far away—be they glorious hero or humble villager. We want stories that are literary in nature, character driven, and leverage the Fantasy genre to create art.

We accept submissions from writers of all experience levels and read flash fiction, short fiction, serial fiction, and poetry. We are periodically interested in creative non fiction and art submissions. We enjoy stories set in the real world or in completely original settings.

Meet the Staff!

Editor-in-Chief: James D. Mills

James D. Mills was born and raised in the heat of California’s Central Valley. Now he resides in the lush, green city of Bloomington, Indiana, where he and his partner, Eden, live a slow life of cultivation and self-sufficiency alongside a menagerie of furry friends. He attends Southern New Hampshire University where he will soon earn his bachelor’s in creative writing and psychology.

His short fiction has been published by the Penmen Review, Floyd County Moonshine, and Calliope on the Web, among others.

​Find out more at: jamesdmills.com

Fiction Editor: Lee Patton

Lee Patton is a Christian and Army veteran from North Dakota. He is fiction editor for The Arcanist: Fantasy Publishing and has been published in The Literary Fantasy Magazine and The Penmen Review. Fascinated with mythic tales of mighty heroes and dark terrors, Lee dwells in the realm of fantasy, where faith and courage are carried on the edge of a blade.

He is author of “Even the Dead Suffer,” first tale in the Izrak the Deathless saga. The story will continue in A Valley of Shadow, set for release in serial, beginning February 2025, on The Literary Fantasy Magazine website. In his free time, Lee is reading vintage Sword & Sorcery, exercising, and learning the Russian language.

Heed The Call and discover more at: Deathless Realms – Fantasy Tales of Lee Patton.

Reader: Juliette Wallace

Juliette Wallace was born in a small town in the bluegrass state of Kentucky where she still resides. She is a student at Southern New Hampshire University studying for her BA in Creative Writing and English. While in school, she’s also a teaching assistant for special education and a full-time mom.

Juliette has had a love for fantasy since a very young age, starting with the Harry Potter novels while she was in elementary school. Since then her passion for reading and writing has only grown. She is currently working on a fantasy novel and writes poetry several times a week.

During her free time, you can find her with a good book, a laptop, and a hot cup of coffee, or reading to her children and listening to the stories they’ve written themselves.

Reader: Menke HB

Menke HB was born in The Netherlands, yet English became her heart language before she moved to the USA in her early 20s. Struggling to feel like she belonged anywhere, she wrote for herself through a decade of chronic depression.

As an English Language and Literature major, her focus on poetry and African American Literature emboldened her to speak up and start sharing her writing. Inspired by authors like Langston Hughes and Octavia E. Butler, Menke writes both LGBTQIA+ and cishet speculative fiction, allowing her characters to figure out who they are as she writes their stories. In addition to long- and short-form fiction, she writes poetry and memoir style essays.

Menke lives on her husband’s family’s dairy farm in Michigan. Here, she homeschools her four children while working towards an MFA in Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University.